JUNE/JULY

So, it's been more than a month now. I think being back home is be a positive thing after all, you just have to make the best out of every situation.
I'm so happy I still talk to the people I was really close to back in Germany :)
For example, my host parents. OMG I skype with them almost every single day! isn't that great? I swear I could've never asked for better host parents than mine. They are SO amazing! Actually my relationship with them is even better than the one I have with my real parents. Being back home was hard at the beginning, because I really didn't have anyone like my host parents. It's weird not having my host parents around, they were always home, my host mom only worked on thursdays and my host dad didn't work at all. My real parents work, both of them, so I just get to see them 2 hours a day and they can't really spend some time me. I don't want to either haha.
I'm glad I still talk to all of my friends (the ones I met in Berlin).

My friends back home are okay, like I said, I'm the weird one now. It's just funny to see how much I changed this year. My friends here love me, they are really nice and everything but I don't think we have the same interests, but we're working on it ;).

What everyone asks me almost every single time they see me is :
MARIA HOW WAS GERMANY? WHEN DID YOU COME BACK?
which is actually kind of annoying, but at least they show some interest right?

They ask me what do I miss the most from Germany too. SO HERE IT IS!
What I miss the most from Germany is being able to move around the city without driving a car.
I live in Puebla, Mexico it is a city with more than 4 million people on it. So you really need a car, unless you want to get kidnapped. BIKES AND BUSSES ARE REALLY DANGEROUS IN MEXICO! don't take a bus EVER.

I think of Berlin pretty much every single day, I know it is going to take me a while to stop comparing cities or countries. My exchange year in Germany definately changed my LIFE. RYE 2009-2010 DAS BESTE JAHR MEINES LEBENS <33

being home :caitlin

so i have been home since june 22nd. its a few hours short of 2 weeks now. being home is A LOT harder then i thought it would be. I had one day off before starting back to work and i have just been really really busy with life. I enjoy being home but I miss all of the freedom and independence i had in Germany. Sometimes i feel like i got younger again! nonetheless i love being home. Today since one of our best friends ben is flying home and probably already home I have been thinking about how close i really was to all of the others. Its so strange when you want to make a joke that only exchange students would understand and you just can't because no one around u understands it anymore! One of the good things about working though is a lot of germans come into my job. I get to speak a few minutes of german every week just to not forget everything. its really cool talking to the germans too because a lot of them think i am german which is an amazing feeling. but yea, all in all its ok being back. This year is germany really opened my eyes to all the opportunities life offers and as my friend ben said, god definitely helped us through it and saved us in all the times we were stupid. I am seriously considering studying in Berlin now for college because it was just a city that i fell in love with from the first time i ever saw it. well i am gonna try to sleep so i can work my 7th day in a row!

ROTARY YOUTH EXCHANGE DISTRICT 1940 2010-11

Life after my exchange year

I've been home for three weeks now. I have really good friends here back in Mexico, but it's not the same as in Germany. People here are so weird now. Well, they aren't, I'm the weirdo now. A lot of things can happen in one year. You grow up mentally, you get used to different stuff, your personality changes. But the thing every single exchange student has to understand is that nothing lasts forever. Fortunately for me, something will, all of the friendships that I made. I know for a fact, that I'm always going to be friends with the people that I was really close to in Berlin.

It's weird not to do the things you have been doing for the last nine months, or doing the things you did not do for 9 months. For example, eating tacos for the first time since 9 months. Wanna know what happened?
I THREW UP ALL NIGHT. I guess I wasn't used to mexican food anymore.
Getting used to Mexico's time zone. I had no sleep for the first week.
WHAT? NO MORE GERMAN BEER? Mexican beer sucks man.
NO MORE BRöTCHEN FOR BREAKFAST? what am I supposed to eat? TORTILLAS?!?!?!
Wait mom, what? why do I have to ask for your permission to go out now?
The list goes on and on.
You also have your responsibilities back and you have to listen to your parents now. You are living together now, not 10,000km away from each other.


A really hard thing to get used to is THE WEATHER.
After living in ''winter land'' for the last couple of months, after living the coldest winter since 1978 (-25°C) and getting used to 10°C on spring almost summer, how am I supposed to get used to 30°C one of a sudden.

I must say, this was the most amazing year of my life. At the beginning it was pretty hard because I wasn't mature enough, I was and I still am really young, if you remember I'm just a 15 year old. I'M JUST A KID.
This year was full of ups and downs but it was totally worth it. Every single moment I was able to spend in Germany was great.
I wouldn't change it for anything.

RYE 2009-2010 THE BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE
DAS BESTE JAHR MEINES LEBENS

FLYING HOME.. WHAAAAAT?

So, I know we haven't wrote anything since March. The time flew and right now I'm back home. Many things have happened this last 3 months. We had this amazing trip called EUROTOUR. It was one of the most amazing experiences ever! It was so cool to travel around Europe with exchange stundents. IT WAS AWESOME! The thing is, I was not that excited for Eurotour, because I knew I was going to fly back home 28 days after it.

28 DAYS LATER.



MAY 26, 2010
BYE BYE DEUTSCHLAND! :/

FLYING BACK HOME!!! NO!!!
It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It was so hard to say goodbye to all of my friends and to my host family.
It was so sad to walk away from all the people that went to the airport just to see you one last time. As I was going through security, I felt my heart stop. I turned around one last time, and took a look to all of the exchange students, all the people I love and all the people that I'm going to remember for the rest of my life.

BERLIN-FRANKFURT. FRANKFURT-MEXICO CITY
After going through security I couldn't stop crying. Everyone thought I was sick, so they changed me to first class so I could feel better. I started reading all of the letters my friends gave me. As I was reading them, my hands were shaking. The only thing that was on my mind was: WHY AM I FLYING HOME SO EARLY? I must say it was a mistake, but I had no choice and I rather be the first one to leave than the last one.

After 12 hours of flight, I was landing in Mexico.
WOW
Even though I was physically in Mexico, my heart was in Berlin. I could not talk. I could not think. Those were the most confusing minutes of my life. But wait, Am I supposed to feel happy? I can't be happy! How am I going to be happy if I left the life I loved behind. SURPRISE! I was devastated.
I only had four things on my mind after we landed.
*What are my host parents doing now without me?
*What is everyone doing back HOME?
*Why is this so WEIRD?
and the most important:
HOW AM I GOING TO BE HAPPY WITHOUT ALL OF MY FRIENDS?

A week apart :[

So, I would say for me and maria everything is going pretty well in Berlin. Other then the usual moments of homesickness we are really enjoying ourselves here. As far as learning German? every day we learn a bit. Especially when we are with our german friends we learn the fun things and slang.

This weekend maria is going to an inbound meeting on an island called niebüll i think. I would be going too but I am going skiing with my school in czech republic. It kinda stinks to miss a weekend with all the exchange students because theyre always interesting to say the least, and of course tons of fun. It is kinda gonna stink though not seeing everyone for a whole week, but skiing should be tons of fun with my school friends!

i love my sister :]

so wut is better then having a best friend? i would have to say almost nothing. yesterday despite maria being soo tired i convinced her to go to the club in neuruppin with me. I would say it turned out good, after all we both made like 2 euros. thank god for pfand!
I can't believe hows fast this year is going!! on the 23rd i will have been here for 6 months, that means i only have 4 left! It's so hard to believe how fast everything goes and before you know it, youre back to the normal life and reality. Theres definitely people I look forward to seeing when i get home and things i wanna do, but its still hard knowing that you gotta leave behind everything that u came to know after the year. Well i guess thats just part of exchange
I went to london for 5 days with my english class. That is one of the most amazing cities i have ever been to! aside from the fact that it was a few degrees warmer and there was no snow on the ground i loved everything about it. But it was soo weird being in an english speaking country after having been in germany for the past almost 6 months. Also, even though it wuz an english speaking country i spoke about 95% german because i was with all germans and why speak english when we dont really have to? Stuff like that always helps my german but it makes it hard to speak english too. More then a few times i ended up speaking german to english people.
Overall i would say everything is going good and hopefully maria will write something soon too :D

January ist Langweilig :S

So, since Caitlin posted something yesterday, I think i should too :)
soo, yesterday meine klassenlehrer told me that pretty much i failed more than 4 subjects
but at least i got a 4 in chemistry :D.
It was snowing a lot yesterday night, so that's
why i didn't go to school today, it was too cold to go outside this morning haha
I haven't seen Caitlin in almost a week, and that's depressing, I don't have anyone to talk to.
So i'm starting to do my homework and everything in school, since finally i can understand almost
everything. I participate a lot in class too and my teachers are happy about that.
I can't believe I only have 4 months left, time is running really fast. I don't know why,
I wanna go home right now, things with my host family feel a little bit awkward, even though
they are amazing. I love them. I know they do everything they can to make me feel at home.
I guess I'm feeling this way cause the weather it's depressing. It is really hard to go out, cause its freezing.
I can't wait for spring!!!!
oh yeah btw
kakao ist so geil :)

Learning to love it

Sitting at the dinner table or having a cup of coffee with my family are things that I have really come to appreciate with my 2nd host family. At first I was unsure he because it was clearly a lot different then being with my host family. If anything, I would say that it's a little more what one would see as a typical German family. My host dad is always more of the decision maker in the house. Although quite different and not anything i was used to, I have really come to appreciate my 2nd host family like I did my first, although in a different way. I guess it's really apart of what this exchange year is about. I have really learned a lot about my host family and I really enjoy talking to them. Not to mention they have helped my German make huge advances. I love sitting in the kitchen talking to my host mom as she's cooking dinner. It seems like we never run out of things to talk about. When my host dad comes home a little later it's nice to talk to him to and really understand more about where they both came from as well as our clearly opposing political views.
Things that I first though were sometimes unfriendly I have come to realize are sometimes misunderstandings or even cultural differences. I think the increased level of comfort goes both ways too. My host parents really have learned to trust me too. If anything I appreciate this because of the way in which I earned their respect. Ok sorry, I probably seem like I am babbling. But nonetheless I just felt a lot more frustrated before I sat down and had a nice conversation with my parents about all the general stuff. They showed me that they really do try to help me and make me happy which is something I totally appreciate. Things like that help me understand what I sometimes I take for a little bit of paranoia haha. Days like today make me feel so accomplished in being an exchange student, I love it.
Today we also discussed the idea of not only improving my German, but also my host families English. Afterall, always room for improvement right? My host dad has really good english and really just wants to improve some of those grammatic errors that any non native speaker makes and I think it's cool that he really wants to make his english better. Also my host mom never talks to me in English but I think she can speak quite a bit, she just feel nervous that it's not as good as I think it should be or something. Either way, she's going to learn a lot from me! Also, they have agreed to correct all of my German so that my grammar and vocabulary will get even better, not that they don't do it now, just not to the extent that they will. I am actually kind of excited for this because I really like helping people with their english whenever I can. It really challenges my German when they don't know a word or something and I am looking forward to the challenge.
Anyway! I would say all is pretty well in Germany. Starting on friday i will be staying with another family for a week while my host parents go skiing in Austria. It should be interesting to stay with them and they have a daughter that's 2 years younger then me who is i guess excited to spend time with me. Over the next 2 weeks I will definately be busy. I decided to attend a hardcore German learning school which in monday to friday from 9- 1 30 every day in Berlin. Another exchange student is currently doing one for a month and he said that it has helped his German to no end. I look forward to getting some much needed help with my grammar, which I think is like the hardest part about German. It is soooo much different than english adn once I master that I know I will have a way better understanding of German. Also, the day after I finish my German bootcamp, I leave for London with my advanced course English course! It's gonna be really cool to spend some quality time with my class and see London too of course. Well that's all I have to say for now, Tschüss! By the way this is Caitlin and I am gonna force Maria to write something today too :]

Good Times

soo, this is both me and maria, we decided that updating our blog when w are together would be cool. Last night we went to santiagos house because he can't do a lot right now, poor santiago had surgery on his leg and is pretty much stuck not doing a whole lot so we brought the party to him! It was pretty cool though, a bunch oif exchange students as well as germans showed up which always makes things interesting. His mom cooked a yummy lasgna haha. anywayy, maria has all this month something called praktikum where you pretty much volunteer in doing something but you don't get paid. Maria is working in a dentist's office. Sadly i don't have quite the same thing although i do have projekt woche in which get to visit museums for a week! Me and Baptiste are doing the same one. Right now it is really really cold in Germany, because of that i guess we don't really do as much as we used to but that will start again soon enough! So Maria is a little messy and so she is cleaning her room as we speak. Maria has A LOT of clothes, she pretty much always go shopping. I try to be stingy about that so whe i really like something i can buy it. As is usual me and maria had our classic breakfast. We always have brötchen at her house and today was no different. Maria loves her frisch käse and i like just butter and jam. We also split our last brötchen to kekep tadition running. Oh how i love a typical saturday morning! Maria said that she agrees.

okk, well i am gonna try to keep on updating. Since i didn't introduce myself before i should probably do that now. I am caitlin Ryan from Greenport new york. On exchange in Neuruppin as i sed, but i practically live in Berlin. Of course i love playing sports, just my thing, and sometimes people tell me i am smart, but they just don't know me. haha. Anyway, today I went with my brother and a man that my host dad works with to Hamburg. It's a city thats aboutt 2 hours from Neuruppin. Like my brother said, it's exactly what you expect a true German city to look like, from the buildings to the streets, just everything. It was pretty crazy to see a city other then Berlin for once. We started with having a really hard time finding the parking garage, and when we finally found it, we spent even more time figuring out how to get out. As soon as we walked out from it, we were at this big shopping center where we picked up our nice little tourist pamphlets as well as a coffee(it was still early) before heading out into Hamburg itself. It was so freakin cold! If there was ever a time to inspire me to buy a really warm jacket it was today. So we started off a little clueless, with absolutely no plans and then just made our way down to the harbor. From there we took a 2 hour boat tour around, which wasn't hard to do since Hamburg has like the second biggest port in Europe or something. It was pretty cool and of course i took a ton of pictures. After we stepped back out into the freezing cold, the man we were with told us about this huge building that has a bunch of exhibitions and what not in it so we went there. The first one we went into was like miniature models of different cities around the world. They had everything from Hamburg(or course) to Vegas and Florida. Sadly, they didn't do New York. It was really amazing though. I decided that i would never ever have the patience to make any such thing with that much detail. From the people to the mountains and the houses, it was so realistic. My favorite part was definitely Nederlands. One part even had a lake with a boat driving around. Pretty cool I must say. After we just went and got some food in the mall and made our way to another part of the city to walk around before we left, it was pretty late afterall. We ended up somewhere really close to the red light district that strangely enough had a ton of souvenir shops(don't ask me). All in all I thought it was pretty cool to head to a little bit more western part of Germany and just see the differences. Of course it wasn't as amazing as Berlin, but it was still really nice because it was a lot smaller city. Having my brother visiting was just a really good excuse to go places, especially on school days haha. Sadly enough, he has to leave Friday and then things will go back to normal, which i don't quite mind either. OK well I don't know what else to write so i am gonna sleep! And i will try to upload pictures!

Who are we?

Caitlin is a bitch from New York. She has something to do with Greenport . She is 17 and she is my sister :)

I'm Maria, an illegal mexican, hahaha just kidding. I come from Mexico and I speak ''MEXIKANISCH'' . I'm 15 years old and Caitlin hates my boyfriend.

We met 3 months ago. We went to alexanderplatz or something like that, and then she slept over .. somewhere.. ;) but that's another story.

It was LOVE at first sight <3333

So, Caitlin's favorite thing to do in Berlin is sleeping over and have breakfast with me :). We have a tradition, we ALWAYS have to split one brötchen. She usually eats it with nuttella und butter, I always eat mine with frischkäse.

Breakfast in my house after a crazy Friday night in Berlin is Brötchen and Vanilla Cola. Sometimes a ''kopfschmerzen'' is included.

I live in Berlin :D but Caitlin, hmmmm she lives in the middle of nowhere, it's called Neuruppin. It has a delicious döner place and a club. yeah that's Neuruppin. She used to live in Sommerfeld. Sommerfeld is a really nice small town, that has more cows than people. Then she had to change to her second host family, that's why she lives 200m away from school.

She comes every single weekend to berlin, and she stays at my house :)

and yeah, I don't have anything else to say, but here's a picture of me and Caitlin :D

our first blog

Soooo, me and maria are exchange students in Germany, Rotary District 1940! and being that we are practically sisters we decided to start keeping a blog of our crazy life here so that everyone else can get an insight into what it's truly like to be an exchange student. Everyone always hears about us learning the language, but what about the silly mistakes we make along the way, or the things we do with our free time. I would have never thought that I would hang out with so many other exchange students and have the best times of my life. And never would I have guessed that my best friend(maria) would be a crazy mexican!

So what's it really like to live in the biggest city in Germany for a whole year? Well Maria lives in Berlin , and while i technically don't, it's still my home. Anyway, the answer to that would be, amazing. It's like stepping out of reality for a year and living life exactly how you have really always wanted to. The best part about it all(especially on rotary exchange)? You have other exchange students with you who completely understand. Whether it's a friday night going out to a club or just any other day hanging out at Ben's or Maria's house, we absolutely always have a good time. Maybe one of the best things about it is the fact that Maria's host parents are absolutely amazing. When they knew about the problems I had having to go early because my train doesn't run all night, they did one of the nicest things one has done for me and offered for me to stay with them when i slept in Berlin. Now, I always appreciate it and have really come to enjoy our long breakfast 's where it seems like i learn more German in an hour or 2 than i sometimes learn in a week.

Even though I have only been here since August, I have learned more then ever, or at least it seems like it. Apart from the obvious learning to speak German, I have learned how to be a lot more responsible, having to wake myself up usually, use my bike or train to get everywhere, and maybe the hardest, I have to completely manage my own money. Managing money seems to always be the toughest, for me I think it's because of the exchange rate. For anyone who doesn't know, 1 euro is equal to about $1.40. Needless to say, money goes quick.

OK well this was just a general thing of how everything goes i guess, and i figure as i keep on writing that everything will be a little less general. Me and Maria will keep everyone posted!